RIM to forge ahead with Flash on the BlackBerry PlayBook, even if it's dead

Adobe may have killed off Flash for both TVs and mobile devices, but that isn't stopping RIM from continuing to support it on the PlayBook. In a statement provided to All Things D yesterday, the BlackBerry manufacturer confirmed that it's not giving up on the dream just yet, because it's one of the Flash Player source code licensees that Adobe will continue to support post mortem:

"As an Adobe source code licensee, we will continue to work on and release our own implementations. RIM remains committed to delivering an uncompromised Web browsing experience to our customers, including native support for Adobe Flash Player on our BlackBerry PlayBook tablet (similar to a desktop PC browser), as well as HTML5 support on both our BlackBerry smartphone and PlayBook browsers. In fact, we are pleased that Adobe will focus more efforts on the opportunities that HTML5 presents for our developers, and shares our commitment to HTML5 as we discussed together at DevCon Americas."

It certainly sounds strange for RIM to issue such a ringing endorsement of an ostensibly moribund platform, though it's not entirely unreasonable, considering the fact that Flash is a major component of QNX. Still, it's hard for us to see RIM expanding the medium much further, at a time when virtually everyone else seems committed to an HTML5 future.